The alarm clock (standard:non fiction, 538 words)
Author: jopoguerrero	Added: Oct 16 2009	Views/Reads: 3916/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
nature's wrath

I recently bought an alarm clock. 

But it is a bit different from the alarm clocks we usually see at the
local department stores or at the nooks of illegal peddlers. 

It is a talking alarm clock. 

Besides the time you set for alarm, it automatically and loudly
announces the time hourly. Also, every time you push its “talk button”, 
it gladly squawks the time – thus, even with your eyes closed deep in 
the night, you can be aware of the time by just a simple touch on the 
alarm clock. 

Truly remarkable – or am I just a dimbulb on latest models? 

According to the net, voice-interactive alarm clocks are now available
in the market – they don't only talk, they listen as well. When you 
bellow back at their screeching alarm, they stop and listen to your 
command – then they set and reset themselves at your order, in your 
preferred language. 

These alarm clocks are even accessorized with voice memory, audio system
for iPhone and iPod, MP3 players, multiple sound effects, sonic boom, 
night vision, dawn and sunrise simulators and other pluses that the 
Veridian Dynamics could conceive. 

Okay, okay, my new alarm clock is not only not-so-new but next to
jurassic. 

Well, archaic or not, it helps me a lot with my schedule. It is
developing my values by enhancing my sense of responsibility – less 
procrastination, more realization; less musing, more finishing. 

It gets me to my feet maniacally even in hours that allow more breathing
space. When I shout at it, “What the hell?” – it seemingly shouts back, 
“Oh Yeah? If you don't act, hell is coming!.” 

Thus, at my alarm clock's bidding, I get up, firm up, then work, work
and work. Well, it is helping me survive the many hells of my work 
despite its eternal pressures and pains. 

This acquisition of mine reminds me of the onslaught made by Typhoon
Pepeng last week in Central and Northern Luzon, Philippines: towns and 
cities under water; homes and livelihoods badly damaged; public 
utilities and services terribly disabled; and hundreds of lives lost in 
floods and landslides. 

If only there is an alarm clock that shrieks-off warning before a
calamity arrives, maybe people will become more alert and more prepared 
against disasters. Or at least, its effects could be restrained or 
controlled to its minimum. 

But wait! Yes, obviously there is such an alarm clock for nature's
wrath. Actually, not only one but numerous alarm clocks – experiences, 
past and present. 

Some of these alarm clocks appeared as the Great Flood in 1972 in
Pampanga, the 1991 Flash Floods in Ormoc City, 1998 Floods in Pasig, 
Pateros, Marikina and Taguig, Typhoon Reming in 2006 and Typhoon Frank 
in 2008. 

Nature's alarm clocks have been crazily ringing since time immemorial.
They have even accessorized themselves with diseases, poverty and 
shocking piles of dead bodies. 

But we still fail to get up. We still chose to snuggle in the sweet bed
of passivity and abuse of our environment. Thus, we missed many 
“scheduled remedies and survival.” 

So sad, yet so true. 

Ooppppps, I have to cut short this depressing chat of ours, because my
alarm clock is shouting something of utmost importance to all of us – 
time to pray! 


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